


Secrets of Family

by Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Series: Lies, Misdirection, and Terrible Truth [27]
Category: Mythology - Fandom, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: GFY, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-19
Packaged: 2017-11-19 02:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The tales mortals have told of my brothers?" He can see her shrug her shoulders out of the corner of his eye. "Sleipnir, Jörmungandr, Fenrir, Nari and Vali? Something of it, yes."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets of Family

"How much of it's real?" Clint glances sideways at the young woman perched on the chair nearest him a moment before he turns his attention ostensibly back to the group across the room - Coulson had returned, to keep an eye on Stark as he talked to Anat. Again, from what he'd said.

"The tales mortals have told of my brothers?" He can see her shrug her shoulders out of the corner of his eye. "Sleipnir, Jörmungandr, Fenrir, Nari and Vali? Something of it, yes."

"Huh." Clint is quiet for a long moment, leaning against the wall as he keeps an eye on the room. He likes this one better than the living maze that Loki had been hiding in the last few times he and Coulson had been here. He's not sure if it's because Anat would rather be out here, or if there's something about Stark that they're here instead of there. "How much of it?"

"That they exist, that they are my brothers, after a fashion." Hel is quiet for a moment. "Sleipnir is perhaps the luckiest of my brothers, because he has never known anything more than the form he is in, and the life he has. Thrall to the All-Father, bearing him where he would go, without thinking that there is anything else to his life."

There's something in her voice that might be bitterness or might be pity, and Clint isn't willing to bet on either one. He's just curious what she will tell him about the rest.

"Jörmungandr is the oldest of the three of my mother's children." Hel shifts, tucking her feet up under her. "Like Sleipnir, he's known no other form but the one he holds now. A great serpent, who lives now beneath the oceans of Midgard. He loves the heat of the long ranges of the volcanoes."

"You've talked to him?"

"Sometimes. At least I can talk to him. I've never met Fenrir." She sighs softly. "His is the worst of ours, I think. You should ask Father if you wish to know about what happened to Fenrir, for it happened when I was too young to know ought of what was happening."

Clint doesn't want to talk to Loki, not with the weirdness of his dreams lately. No matter what Coulson said about them going away. "What about the other two?" He's not going to let himself think about the dreams if he can avoid it.

"They remain with Sigyn, if they are not yet grown. I have not asked where they are, but they live, for they are not in my realm." Hel is quiet for a moment, until Clint looks away from the conversation across the room and down to her. She's watching him with an expression on her face he can't read. "Father probably sent them away, to protect them. The All-Father has banished or harmed all my brothers - pronounced a doom upon me that would have been worse to bear if I'd not chosen the mentor I did. Father would not risk such happening to another of his children."

He still doesn't want to talk to Loki, but there's too much he can't get from others to make sense of the dreams. Things he doesn't want in his head, and doesn't understand.

"Father made Sleipnir to show Anat he had learned what she taught him." That isn't something he's expecting, and Clint frowns. "She brought Baal back from Mot's realm, back from the dead. She keeps him from the dead, and she taught Father how she does that."


End file.
